This gene encodes a cytokine that functions in inflammation and the maturation of B cells. The protein is primarily produced at sites of acute and chronic inflammation, where it is secreted into the serum and induces a transcriptional inflammatory response through interleukin 6 receptor, alpha. The functioning of this gene is implicated in a wide variety of inflammation-associated disease states, including suspectibility to diabetes mellitus and systemic juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Sandwich ELISA analysis of human IL-6 was performed using a Human IL-6 Colorimetric ELISA kit (Product # EH2IL6) by loading 50 ul per well of a mouse anti-human IL-6 biotinylated antibody (Product # M621B) at a concentration of 0.035 ug/ml and 50 ul of Human IL-6 Recombinant Protein (Product # SIL6) at 400, 160, 64, 25.6, 10.24, and 0 pg/ml (both in quadruplicate) across a 4 ug/ml mouse anti-human IL-6 (Product # M620) pre-coated plate. The plate was incubated for 2 hours at room temperature, washed, and incubated with 100 ul per well of Streptavidin-HRP (Product # N504) in all test wells at 1:7000 for 30 minutes at room temperature. Detection was performed using 1-Step Ultra TMB Substrate (Product # 34028) for 30 minutes at room temperature in the dark. The plate was stopped with 0.16M sulfuric acid. Absorbances were read on a spectrophotometer at 450-550 nm.